Critics (AO5) Flashcards
Foakes: Old Age
‘A pathetic senior citizen trapped in a hostile environment’
Heilman: sight
‘The old men themselves come to insight through suffering’
Heilman: Lear’s love
‘He insists upon the untenable proposition that love can be measured’
Heilman: Lear’s power
‘His failure to perceive that a king cannot be a king without a crown’
Heilman: Gloucester
‘Gloucester is the object of manipulation…he too easily yields to that in which he should see evil’
Rubio: Cordelia/women
Cordelia uses ‘silence, the only possible form of subversion for upper-class women’
Johnson: good vs evil
‘The wicked prosper and the virtuous miscarry’
Woods: fool/ vulnerability
‘Lear has no soliloquies…the Fool provides the means for Lear to use a more intimate and unguarded voice’
Shupack: Nature order/ C’s Death
Cordelia’s death ‘denies the necessity of a just natural order’
McNeir: Edmund’s character development
‘Sinks into the abyss of evil once more, and tries to crawl out-too late’
Savvas: end of play
‘By the end of the play, we have realised that there are no longer any frontiers between the wise and the ridiculous, between the sane and the insane, between man and beast, or even between man and the gods’
Savvas: justice contrasts Johnson
‘Good and bad suffer alike and there is no mercy in either case’
Dunn: selfishness
‘Goneril, Regan, Oswald, Cornwall and Edmund display a selfishness so callous it cannot be touched by human pity’
Dunn: religion
‘The storm acts as a symbol of the last judgment…connotations of doomsday that would have reached a Christian audience’
McLaughlin: power hungry
‘His three daughters and Edmund are driven by the need to achieve social, personal, and sexual power’
Kathleen Mcluskie: order
‘A destructive reversal of the rightful order’
Kathleen Mckluskie: women
‘Women are made either to submit-Cordelia- or must be destroyed- Goneril and Regan’
Kathleen Mckluskie: Cordelia & women
‘Cordelia’s return is a restoration of patriarchy, of the old order. But this cannot be wholly reduced to male power’
Kathleen McLuskie: family bonds
‘family relations in this play are seen as fixed and determined, and any movement within them is portrayed as a destructive reversal of natural order’
S.L.Goldberg: justice
‘There is no supernatural justice- only human natural justice’
Coppelia Kahn: madness and women
‘Lear goes mad because he is unable to accept his dependence on the feminine, his daughters’
Helen Norris: unnatural behaviour
‘The horror of Lear’s story is the unnatural behaviour of Goneril and Regan…not only personal sins but an upsetting of civilised values’
Hal Halbrook: Lear as a father
‘He has clung steadfastly to the conviction that he is a loving father despite all evidence of the contrary’
A.Kettle: Lear’s madness
‘Lear’s madness is not so much a breakdown as a breakthrough. It is necessary’
‘It is through his madness […] that Lear comes to a new outlook on life’
Cunningham: Lear- madness and wisdom
‘Lear winds “wisdom through madness”’
Emma Smith: madness and human sanity
‘Shakespeare’s exploration of madness in “King Lear” reflects the fragility of human sanity in the face of overwhelming chaos’
Jonathan Bate: blindness and Gloucester
‘The character of Gloucester in “King Lear” embodies the theme of moral blindness and the consequences of failing to see the truth’
Barabara Everett: conflict
‘The storm scene in King Lear symbolises the internal turmoil and conflict within the characters’
Stephen Orgel: familial duty
‘Shakespeare’s depiction of filial ingratitude in King Lear challenges traditional notions of familial duty and loyalty’
Lisa Jardine: female characters and power dynamics
‘The portrayal of female characters in King Lear, particularly Goneril and Regan, subverts contemporary gender expectations and reveals complexities of power dynamic’
Micheal Neill: Cordelia and corruption
‘The character of Cordelia in King Lear represents a paragon of virtue and integrity in a world corrupted by greed and deceit’
James Shapiro: the Fool
‘The Fool in King Lear serves as a mirror to Lear’s folly and a voice of conscience in a morally bankrupt society’
Leah Marcus: Machiavellian Edmund
‘The character of Edmund in “King Lear” embodies the Machiavellian archetype, manipulating others for his own gain’
David Scott Kastan: hope
‘The final scene of “King Lear” offers a glimmer of hope amidst the tragedy, suggesting the possibility of redemption and reconciliation’
Mark Taylor: letters
‘Personal letter in plays are not, of course, merely personal letters; they are, additionally, a means of generating plot, a means of compressing large events into small space and one means of presentation avaliable to the dramatist’
Juliet Dusinberre: fathers and the patriarchy
‘The character of Cordelia in “King Lear” subverts patriarchal expectations by rejecting her father’s authority and asserting her own autonomy’
Carol Neely: the Fool
‘The character of the Fool in “King Lear” serves as a voice of reason and critique, challenging the misogyny and injustices of the play’s world’
Kiernan Ryan: animal imagery and power
‘Shakespeare’s use of imagery, particularly animal imagery, in “King Lear” underscores the dehumanising effects of power and ambition’
Stanley Wells: moral order + human existence
‘The clear absence of a clear moral order in “King Lear” reflects the chaotic and arbitrary nature of human existence’
Janet Adelman: gender roles
‘Shakespeare’s portrayal of Goneril and Regan in “King Lear” offers a critique of traditional gender roles and exposes the consequences of women’s oppression’
Marianne Novy: women in Renaissance England
‘The treatment of Lear’s daughters in ‘King Lear’ reflects the societal fear and vilification of powerful women in Renaissance England’
